The Indian Army has received the second regiment of the Brahmos cruise missile from BrahMos Aerospace, the Indo-Russian joint venture for missile development. The second regiment, handed over by the Minister of State for Defence Dr.M.M. Pallam Raju, consisted of a battery of crucial systems for the Indian Army version of the Brahmos cruise missile. This regiment will have the Block-II version of the BrahMos missiles which have been designed as precision strike weapons capable of hitting small targets in cluttered urban environments.
The second regiment of BrahMos missile systems included ground systems with four to six mobile launchers, each carrying a battery of four cruise missiles. Other things included the command post, replenishment systems, and fire-control with sophisticated electronic hardware and software and with multiple communication systems. These were handed over Minister of State for Defence, Dr.M. M. Pallam Raju to the Lieutenant General Vinod Nayanar, Director General, and Artillery, in the presence of A. S. Pillai, CEO and MD, BrahMos Aerospace. P. Venugopalan, Director, DRDL, and Brig. Mehta, Deputy Director-General, Military Operations.
During the ceremony of the handing over of the second regiment of BrahMos missile systems, Dr.Pallam Raju stated that the versatile BrahMos system for Indian Army was being delivered ahead of schedule. Dr. Raju added that India must go full force ahead and produce the multiple versions of the BrahMos system to equip the Indian Armed Forces. Missile-industry complexes with a network of public and private sector industries that are producing four versions of the missiles to meet the demand of the three services have been formed.
For India, BrahMos missile system will be the preferred first strike weapon due to its world-class cruise missile attributes. The BrahMos missile system has a supersonic speed of Mach 2.8 and the only system with India which gives exceptional fire power capability to the armed forces for targets beyond 75 kilometres and as deep as 300 kilometres. The system has a precision of near-zero circular error probability and significantly more lethal power since it possesses nine times more kinetic energy than sub-sonic cruise missiles.
One of the latest announcements made by the BrahMos Aerospace is its intention of developing hypersonic cruise missiles. BrahMos Aerospace has opened a center of excellence for developing hypersonic aerodynamic vehicles and engines at the prestigious Indian Institute of Science (IISc) in Bangalore. The new Centre of Excellence at IISc will undertake research and development in the field of high speed aerodynamics, leading to the development of the advanced BrahMos-II missile system and reusable hypersonic vehicles. BrahMos II is a stealth hypersonic cruise missile that is being currently developed and could fly at Mach 7.
The world’s fastest cruise missile BrahMos is developed by the BrahMos Aerospace Private Limited, a joint venture between the Defence Research and Development Organization (DRDO) of India and the Federal State Unitary Enterprise NPO Mashinostroyenia (NPOM) of Russia. This Indo-Russian joint venture for missile development was formed in 1998 with the intention to design, develop, manufacture and market worlds only and the fastest supersonic cruise missile system. India is the only country to have a supersonic cruise missile developed in a joint venture with Russia.
The Indian Army received its first Brahmos regiment way back in 2007 and it has led to the formation of N816 missile regiment. The first regiment of BrahMos-I consisted of 67 missiles, five mobile autonomous launchers on 12x12 Tatra vehicles and two mobile command posts, among other equipment. The Indian Navy received the first version of Brahmos cruise missile in 2005 and an IAF version of the BrahMos cruise missile which would be fitted to Su-30 MKI is being developed as well. |